...while we were sharing a baby one night my dark star said to me, "Wouldn't it be a rip if we had your picture taken? It's the latest thing!" and I said, "But what if I want to keep my picture?", "Oh kitten, kitten! This picture you can keep!" my dark star said to me, "I know a man who knows a man who knows a man that can..."
"Miss Edith does not approve!" I said.
"Sod Miss Edith!" my dark star said to me, "I want to see your picture!"
I let him finish the baby because I was so vexed that he used filthy words in front of me...
...then we went to see the man that a man who knows a man who knows a man that can...
...we woke him up...
...he had a large wooden box with three legs...
...his fear was perfume...
When my dark star told the man who knows a man who knows a man that can what he wanted him to do, the man who knows a man who knows a man that can said, "Impossible, it's the middle of the night! You need sun to take a picture! Come back at noon tomorrow!"
I started to cry because now that I knew I could keep my picture I wanted someone to take my picture very much...
I had the pretty dress from the baby's mother on so I was very pretty...
I knew that I was very pretty because Miss Edith said so and Miss Edith doesn't lie or I will punish her.
...my dark star said to me, "Oh poodle, what is the sun but a room full of candles?"
...so I said, "A million million rooms and a million candles!"
Miss Edith agreed, because she knows she always must agree with her black lamb...or I will be very, very cross with her!
...so my dark star told me, "Watch the man, pet, and I will get you candles, so many many candles that the sun will be jealous and you will get your picture taken. Just watch the man while I get you your candles...if you are good when he takes your picture, I will let you bite him first!"
...so I watched the man who knows a man who knows a man that can until my dark star came back with all the candles in the world.
...and the man who knows a man who knows a man that can's fear was like incense from the churches that my dark star had stolen all my pretty candles from...
...it was very hard not to bite him...
...then my dark star lit all the pretty candles in the room...
... there were candles on the mantle...
...there were candles on the window sills...
...there were candles on the floor...
...there were candles on the pictures...
...there were candles on the chairs...
...and the room shone like the sun was living in it but it wasn't because if the sun was living in the room my dark star and me would burn right up to dust, isnt that silly?
Because my dark star and me didn't burn to dust I knew the sun wasn't there...
...it was just candles...
...many, many candles...
...Miss Edith agrees with me, don't you Miss Edith?
So the man who knows a man who knows a man knew had me sit down in front of his wooden box on legs and I sat very, very still for a long time...
...I'm good at that, sitting very very still like a good girl...
...my meals never know that I am there until I've eaten them because I can sit so very still like a good girl not fidgeting...
...there was a click and the man who knows a man who knows a man knew said, "Done, you may move now. Let me develop this."
But I stayed still anyway because Miss Edith told me it would be a good idea to stay still...
...the man who knows a man who knows a man that can went into a little room and closed the door behind him.
My dark star caught him climbing out of the window in that little room and broke some of his fingers for him because my dark star was so very vexed at him trying to escape before he finished his work...
...Miss Edith and my dark star saw to it that he finished his work...
...it was a little picture of a lady on a piece of glass...
...I didn't know who that lady on the glass was...
...and my dark star said to me "Silly girl, that's you!"
But it couldn't be me because I am me, and I am not made of glass, and my dark star said to me, "It's just a likeness...it's not you...it could never be as beautiful as you."
"Oh," I said, "It's not me but it looks like me...like a reflection in the mirror made forever, a mirror that can see me and only me.
I don't like mirrors because I don't exist in them.
Mirrors hate me.
I exist in this mirror so it must like me.
"I will keep it after all."
...so we ate the man and then we let the candles burn his box with three legs, his little room and his house all up.
It was very pretty!
I used to have the only mirror that would look at me, but I think it got broken.
...or maybe it got mad at me and wouldn't show me myself anymore so I had to eat it.
Miss Edith won't tell me where my friendly mirror went, no matter how much I punish her.
Silly Miss Edith!
Author's Note: The older types of photography, which include dagurreotypes, ambrotypes, calotypes, etc., needed high intensity sunlight and long exposures in order to get even the faintest of images. Early photography studios came equipped built in skylights and even then, extremely long exposures where the sitter had to sit absolutely still for minutes at a time were the rule - not the exception. Generally, to keep sitters immobile, their heads were clamped into place to cut down on any potential motion blurring. Dru, being dead, would not need this system of iron clamps, though she might have enjoyed the experience had it been offered her. The ambrotype was pretty much on its way out by this time, so the terrible two probably stumbled in on a small town "die hard", who had yet to get around to switching over to dryplate photography and flash powder because of either personal preference, or lack of funds.